State high court hears ‘Fight­ing Sioux’ case

BIS­MARCK | North Dakota Supreme Court jus­tices grilled the state Board of Higher Ed­u­ca­tion’s lawyer Thurs­day af­ter­noon about why the board waited to chal­lenge the Fight­ing Sioux nick­name law in court.

The higher ed­u­ca­tion board is ask­ing the jus­tices to block a vote on a March 2011 state law that re­quires the Univer­sity of North Dakota’s sports teams to be called the Fight­ing Sioux.

As­sis­tant At­tor­ney Gen­eral Doug Bahr said the state con­sti­tu­tion gives the board au­thor­ity over the nick­name.

But Jus­tice Dan Crothers said dur­ing ar­gu­ments Thurs­day that he won­dered why the board was tardy in chal­leng­ing the law if mem­bers thought it was harm­ful to the univer­sity.